


A crown of roots and ice

by Morpheewideawake



Category: game of thrones
Genre: Bran Stark - Freeform, Game of thrones imagine, Ghosts, Memories, Reading carefully, SPOILERS AHEAD, SPOILS, Three eyed raven - Freeform, the north - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-05-18 12:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19334710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheewideawake/pseuds/Morpheewideawake
Summary: In the death-like cold, memories are flooding. Coming back an adult to his childhood castle, Bran sees the reminiscences of the dead now set free. Winter will leave and with him the figures of a once happy but hard past.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 **Bran** looked toward the icy horizon that was expanding before his eyes. Darkness had surrounded the castle of Winterfell many hours before winter had come with it. The castle was sleeping in the exaltation of their victory.  Memories of his young time flowed into his mind briefly, as peaceful snow was falling upon Winterfell. His eyes looked into the night, the castle of Winterfell was lighted by the light of the moon, and some torches inside the occupied chambers.

The night was still young, but the battle was fierce, the people need to rest and recover, grieve. Bran knows, he saw it. After the fall of the night king, it’s the only thing they can do. They’re not prepared for the second war that is to come. From where he sits, Bran can remember all that once was in Winterfell, since its creation. The wall that once stood high against the harsh wind of winter, and the happiness of his ancestors living in peace between in its center. Bran can see their pale figures slowly reenacting their past lives.

He's not begetting a fantasy. Bran sees memories of times where people were happier. Winter had raped every smile on the face of the living. The sepultures of the dead have bent with it, so now they roam free, walking their world once more, for the last time. He sees mothers and children embracing each other, brothers and sisters greeting one another happily, Bran understands that life after death is not given to those who are buried. He sees their forme vanish in the dark of the night one after the other, as they figure out how to leave the world of the living. His eyes diverged from the ground to look for the horizon and the sun that is slowly rising, nights are shorts in the north, and morning is still far.

Bran sees a form that is yet to disappear in the dim light of the morning. He can see her eyes as if she was standing in front of him. Dark brown, an ocean of malicious stars that shines carefully. In the smile she holds up toward him, Bran can see the knowledge she had of him. Her lips moved, but the cold wind took the words from Bran before they could reach his ears. She blinked, her dress was torn in many places, he could see the holes she was proudly harbouring. The early morning sun was reflecting upon her dark hair, making the red in them shine even brighter. A delicate crown made out of tangled roots and some ice was resting upon her head.

 She smiled at him, one of her hand passing through her hair. Bran’s heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t his emotions, for it had been a long time since he felt anything, those emotions were older than he was, they came from beneath his own knowledge, from the firsts Sighted. The ghostly form of the girl he watched from his window was so old that she came from the very first generation living between the walls of Winterfell. She touched her forehead, where a crystal of ice was resting with a finger, a knowing smile was illuminating her face. The wind blew again, taking her form away as she waved at Bran one last time.

Bran could feel his heart breaking as if it was the first time he was viewing death. His hands could feel the wood of his seat as well as the cold wind outside, but he mostly feels the hollow now present in his heart. A raven called in the night the croaking echoed within the walls of the castle and deep into the very soul of the once-was-Stark. A taunted sound for his grief, he doesn’t even know why he feels so alone at the moment, for it was a feeling he thought he had under control. The roots-crowned girl with dark eyes was still smiling before his eyes, a vision that doesn’t belong to him, and leaves the three-eyed raven alone to his destiny once more. After all, he mostly lived in the past. His life wasn’t really his, as he knew all of the memoirs behind it. Only the girl remained an enigma.

His hand relaxed against his seat from the grip he had on it. The sun was mirroring upon the snow, before his eyes, a see of gold and white was extending without end. Bran doesn’t travel to his bed, it’s too late now, or too early. Plus he doesn’t really want to do anything now. All he desires is to remember the name of the brown-haired lady with a gorgeous smile and piercing eyes, maybe, if he could recollect wherever his thoughts had her last, he would feel complete again. He only could recall of her was the grin on her face and the feeling of roots upon his head, like a dirty crown resting at the end of his hair. 


	2. Her of the Saltcliffe island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girl is too young for her life to happen, but there is nothing she can do to stop it from happening.

**She** was a small girl living in a big man's world. While she was excited to travel North, enjoying the change of scenery, her father didn’t experience the same joy as she did. She had more liberties now that her mother stayed in the castle of her brother, in the Vale. She was too sick to go north, and someone had to stay with the younger children. It was a wonder that her mother let her travel with her Lord Father, accompanying her older brothers in their trail of war. She didn’t care about how much farther North she was going to end up, she only wanted to be free. Their lord told her about how much land there was up North and how freely she would be riding if she wanted to join them. She was still too young to understand why they were riding North in the first place.

Her father told her that they were returning home, but home for her was South and near the water. She long preferred to walk in the sand, her toes in the cold water looking at the baptism going, carefully praying with the men of the castle too. She didn’t really like the look of the white tree bark and red leaves of the Heart trees the Northmen liked so much. They were scary. Even if her friends with the green and grey-ish skin she had made in the forest told her stories about gods and ghost living inside and granting wishes if she prayed hard enough. They tried to sound reassuring, but sometimes, when the night was dark and cold and that animals were walking near the tents, they would come back into her head and haunt her for the night. But when it was Bran, the one her father, her brothers and the other soldiers with them called The Builder that was narrating the stories she liked them better than the ones about her god. 

Brandon was truly a builder, for he was making plans to raise a big castle and a wall to stop intruders and Icemen from entering their lands. Her father had shown her where the castle Bran would build was to be on the lowland they were camping on. It was near a forest going from dark brown and green to red and white. It was in the same forest where the snow and the trees were only making one that she found her friends. They would play and run and jump and climb and dance with her when her brothers were to busy for her or when her septa weren’t paying close attention to her. She would tell them about everything and they would listen and they would tell her tales about the very first king in the North and explain the war when she would run out of conversations. She would also tell them about her fear of her future wedding to their leader.  
‘’ Because he’s all ol’ an’ grey, an’ I have yet to bleed see…’’ 

They didn’t seem to understand why she had to be bleeding to get married, for they had all see her blood when she would scrap her knees falling. She didn’t know either, to be honest, nobody wanted to tell her why. He mother had told her that it was because she would be ready to be married and bear children to life. But she didn’t want to bear children to life. She wanted to run and jump and dance and climb all she wanted. 

She’s nine years old, and her father had already promised her hand to Brandon -The Builder- of the Stark family. He was much older than her, with seven and ten year names days more than she had. He wasn’t playing with wood swords and riding poneys anymore like the younger boys would do all day long. He was standing tall, just like her lord father, with his dark brown hair slowly turning grey with the years and the cold. He didn’t run much and preferred to talk low with the others when she would come near. 

She too, slowly, was starting to change. Her body was forming slowly, her breast was enlarging, so were her hips. But she didn’t bleed. Her father refused her to run and jump and climb and dance where he or her septa could not see her anymore. All the friends she had in the encampment were starting to learn about motherhood and embroidery. What she wants to do is ride and walk through the woods and good to her green and grey-ish friends in the forest. She knows that she’ll have to stop playing soon and that terrifies her. She doesn’t want to grow up and start acting like a lady if it’s to be married to Brandon the Builder, who does have a reputation about violence and women, though she’s not sure if they go together. 

On her tenth names day, she starts to pray. ‘’My father and brothers are righteous, they go on your calls, Oh Drowned One. Never they asked for something in return or to be graced by something after their actions. I ask for their protection tonight and I dare be selfish and ask for more time. Give me the possibility to live for my own before I start living for another.’’ She spends hours at night talking to the Drowned God, and the Old Gods of the Forest, asking them to be kind and listen to what she asking. 

The other women pray for Bran, but she doesn’t, she never pray for him. She’s angry with him, to have to wed him so her father can be at peace. Creating an alliance with the newly found Stark family is the job that her lord father gave her, she hates it. The week following her name days celebration, a letter comes from the Vales announcing the death of her mother. Her father closed himself even more after that and her brother Walton sits her down to talk about the matter. She cries and cries but nothing works. She asks the Drowned God one last time why he would take her so suddenly, while she hasn’t seen her mother for months. It’s the following month that she starts bleeding. The septa try to reassure her, but it only gives her more thing to panic over. She was frantic about her father knowing her new state. Scared of her father’s reaction. She was scared he would want to marry her off in the next weeks.


End file.
